28 November 2016

If Einsteinian relativity physics is to be taken seriously --
and it is within the scientific community-establishment taken unquestionably so, because science's only criterion of truth is
experimental verification -- then this physics confronts us with
weird consequences.

I've already addressed one of them in my recent post on mental acts.

What about the question of being posed within relativistic
space-time? For simplicity, I'll consider here only the flat
Minkowskian space-time of special relativity, but similar
thoughts apply mutatis mutandis to general relativity
with its curved Riemannian space-time. Note that each
observer-subject in relativity physics has its own reference
frame, that is, its own space-time manifold.

In relativity physics there is no longer any 3D-Euclidean space
(Where specified as (x,y,z)) with an add-on 1D-temporal line
(When specified as t) to count/measure time absolutely within
the 3D-space. This was the situation in Newtonian mechanics, for
time was its own dimension and hence absolute, a single clock
for the entire universe. In relativity, time becomes relative to
the absolute movement of light (or, more, generally,
electromagnetic radiation) as received by an observer-subject,
thus spatialized and tied to the three spatial dimensions, so
that the relativistic physicist now speaks only of 4D-events
in space-time (x,y,z,t). The 'distance' between space-time
events is now neither purely spatial as measured Euclideanly as
d^2 = x^2+y^2+z^2, the square of the distance is the 'Pythagorean' sum of the squares of the 3 dimensionals,
nor is it purely temporal as measured by
d^2=t^2,
i.e. a time-interval given by the formula, the square of the
temporal distance is the square of t.

How, then, is 'distance' between events measured in flat relativistic
space-time? It is measured by the so-called 'metric' on the
Minkowskian space-time manifold as defined by the space-time
distance formula:
s^2=(x^2+y^2+z^2)
- t^2 = d^2 - t^2,
that is in words, the squared space-time
distance between events is the difference between squared spatial
distance and the squared temporal
interval ('distance'). This is weird enough, but it's the
way mathematical relativity physics proceeds. In general
relativity, the metric on the space-time manifold just gets
(much) more complicated and harder to handle in the
(tensor-differential) equations.

What are some consequences of this conception of distance
between space-time events? One is that there is zero space-time distance between events if
and only if the square of their spatial distance is
equal to the square of their temporal distance, that
is:

0=(x^2+y^2+z^2) -
t^2 = d^2 - t^2,
which implies d^2 = t^2,
so that
d = +/- t,
or in words: the spatial distance is equal to
plus or minus the temporal interval-distance.

Let's take a simple example, the Sun in our
Earth's solar system. The Sun's distance
from Earth is approx. 150 million km, and it
takes light approx. 8 minutes to reach the
Earth over this spatial distance.

What does it mean for an observer-subject on
Earth for the Sun to 'be'? For science it is
axiomatic that only that 'is' which can be
registered as a signal received sensuously in
the here-and-now. Only that which is
here-and-now 'is', i.e. exists, for modern
science. How does the Sun exist in the
observer-subject's here-and-now? Answer: Only
if the space-time distance between sun-events
and observer-events is zero.
What does that mean?
Events always have the form (x,y,z,t),
i.e. (where,when) in space-time.
The Sun's (where,when)
has zero space-time
distance from the
observer's (where,when)
if and only if the metric gives
zero, that is,
the square of
the spatial
distance 150^2
km^2 = 8^2
sec.^2.
But this means
that for you
as observer
the Sun only
exists in your here-now at
either plus
eight minutes
in your future
or at minus
eight minutes
in your past
within your
very own Minkowskian
reference
frame! For
you, the Sun
only ever will
be or was, but
never 'is' at
your present
moment. The eight minutes represent the time it takes for you to receive a light-signal from the Sun, or for you to send a light-signal to the Sun.

If you take
the Moon
rather than
the Sun, the
former has an
average
spatial
distance of
approx.
384,000 km.
from the Earth
Since light
travels at
approx.
300,000 km/s,
the Moon is a
bit more than
one
light-second
away
spatially.
Relativistically
speaking, the
Moon only
exists for you
observing it
on Earth at
plus one
second in your
future or
minus one
second in your
past.

And the Sun
and the Moon
exist
'simultaneously'
for you, the
observant
receiver of
light signals,
only separated
by roughly
plus or minus
eight minutes!

You can only
ever observe
those events
whose space-time
distance from
you is zero or
negative:

(x^2+y^2+z^2) - t^2 = d^2 - t^2 <= 0

All those
events with
positive space-time
distance from
you:

(x^2+y^2+z^2) - t^2 = d^2 - t^2 > 0

are
outside your
Minkowskian
light-cone,
hence cannot
reach you, nor you reach them, in
your
space-time and
therefore do
not exist for
you, never
have and never
will.

For you as
observer-subject,
your
space-time,
here-and-now
'event simultaneity'
is an infinite
superposition
of spatial
spheres whose
ever-increasing squared spatial distances match your ever-increasing
squared times
of time future
and time past.

Hence
relativistic
space-time
'simultaneity'
is weirder
than
physicists
care to think.
Since in
relativity
theory, the
subject is
cast
exclusively AS
a receiver (or sender) of
e-m (or
gravitational)
signal-information, how can an active mental act by the observer be
conceived at
all? Only as sending a signal?Apropos:
Today's smug
& arrogant
mathematico-scientific elite is hell-bent, for instance, on furthering
the reach of
both
relativity
theory and
quantum
mechanics into
the human mind
(a unified
theory of
quantum
gravity is
still sadly lacking).
Hence, for
example, the
famous Sir
Roger Penrose
is working on
a theory of
consciousness
with a
quantum-mechanical
core (cf. my
recent link to
The
Life
Scientific
on BBC4). When
you think
you're
actively
thinking, in
physical
'reality'
you're only
surfing on
underlying
quantum-mechanical
'processes'.
You're
deluded.

One could pose
the question
as to whether
the flat or
curved
relativistic
space-time of
modern
mathematical
physics is at
all existentially
liveable for
us human
beings. Or
does it
represent a
brutal, unliveable truncation
of the
existential
world solely
for the sake
of gaining
mathematically
calculable
access to it
with the aim
of mastering
and
controlling
all physical
movement/change?

It goes
without saying
that today's
scientists
dismiss such
questioning
out of hand as
'unscientific', 'poetic', mere 'philosophical speculation',
'ridiculous',
&c. I have
plenty of hard
empirical
evidence of
this evasion.
Instead of a
genuine,
open-minded
'search for truth',
I experience
savage defence
of the status
quo.

27 November 2016

Let's do a genuine thought experiment to ponder mental acts in relativity theory a little more closely, throwing some doubt upon the relativistic axiom (experimentally evidenced) that nothing physical can travel faster than the speed of light.:Is the mind physical? Is time itself physical, as physics unquestioningly postulates? :Think of the sun. How
long did it take you to do so? If this mental act were, scientifically
speaking, in reality a physical act, then it should take at least 16
minutes to do so. Why? Because your mental act requires first
sending a mental signal to the sun, which takes 8 minutes at the
speed of light, and then another 8 minutes for your mind to
receive a signal back from the sun confirming that it is really there.
Ah, you say, that's a fallacy, because when you think of the
sun, you only have to think as far as the little representation
of the sun stored
in your brain. So the signal only has to speed a
little way via the ganglions of your nerves at around 1 to 100 m/s to retrieve your
very own little memory-stored representation of the sun. The next question is obvious and remains unanswered: What is the relationship between the representation of the sun purportedly in your brain and the sun out there in space at the centre of our solar system?

It must get terribly cluttered up there in the attic that is
your brain. If you think of the sun you saw yesterday, how do
you manage to go back in time to retrieve its representation? Or
does your mental-physical act retrieve the same old
multi-purpose representation of the sun that merely has been
given a time-stamp?

And when you think of your brain, are you really thinking of
your brain, or only of a little representation of your brain
stored in your brain? According to modern-day science and its
corresponding hegemonic subjectivist metaphysics (the tacit, suppressed foundation of analytic philosophy), you have only
representations of the external world stored somehow inside
consciousness which itself is conceived as located somehowphysically in
your brain.Modern science perseveres today in trying to grapple with the problem of consciousness by presupposing that mental acts are 'basically' physical. To put it mildly, this is questionable.

26 November 2016

Further to my last post on relativistic signals/messages: i) Interesting in connection with the cosmological theory of the
expanding universe (based on empirical observations of the
remote universe through radio telescopes) is that it is
spherical only in the sense of expanding from any point
concentrically at uniform (or uniformly accelerating or uniformly decelerating?) velocity and isotropically (without
any preferred direction). Thus there is no limit to this
'sphere'; it is _apeiron_, open.

ii) This mathematico-empirical cosmology is
ontogenetic through and through, thus conforming with the
favourite mode of explanation, whether scientific,
historiographical, geistesgeschichtlich, mythological or
whatever, to wit, explaining what is today from what was before, temporally prior, from origins, Herkunft. For this mode of explanation the
linear time-line is essential, no matter whether this time-line
is straight or bent around into a circle (cyclical). That
other, philosophical mode of thinking according to which 'prior'
is to be conceived not temporally, but according to the order of
thinking through from the most elementary and abstract to the
more and more concrete that thus has many more presuppositions,
is forgotten or explicitly repudiated as 'unscientific'. This
ontological way of thinking that respects the order of concepts
from the most elementary with the least presuppositions is
foreign not only to modern mathematico-empirical science, but to
modern ways of thinking as a whole. People want to hear stories;
narrative is easy to consume; it is the stuff of movies.

iii) The homology between Plato's Timaios and modern
science is curious. You can drop Plato's creator god in Timaios
without losing the basic cosmological conception whose
elements crop up in modern scientific cosmology, e.g. that time
(_chronos_) came about together with the sky (_ouranos_
synonymous with _pan_, the universe) with its moving celestial
bodies from which time is counted. Or the elementary 'fair',
symmetrical geometrical, triangularly constructed shapes of cube
(Earth), icosa-
(Water), octo-(Air), tetrahedron
(Fire), which interestingly correlate with the four
modern-scientific states of matter: solid, liquid, gas, plasma,
respectively.

iv) Whereas Plato encapsulates his universe spherically in a
psyche, i.e. in the principle of life, modern relativity
cosmology encloses, or rather, sections, the ever-expanding
universe into time-cones in 4D space-time emanating from each
observer-subject. The relative future for each observer is cut
by the cone of the photons that will be able to reach it at the
speed of light at a later point in linear time. The relative past for each
observer is cut by the cone of the photons that can reach it
at the absolute speed of light from an earlier point of time.
Only within this (Minkowski) time-cone do space-time events
'exist' for each observer-subject in the
sense that at some present point of time, photons (or
gravitons) can be registered as 'information' by the observer's
receiver-apparatus. Points in space-time outside the
observer's time-cone can never reach it (they haven't enough
time=light-metres to reach it). The limit to which the
observer can look back into its time-cone is given by the
sensitivity of its receiver-apparatus (radio telescope,
gravitational interferometer); improvement in
sensitivity of apparatuses is the key to uncovering
the past by recovering the photons and gravitons it
sent out long ago. Scientists are therefore keen on
getting billions of funding to build more sensitive
apparatus such as LISA.

v) Speculative cosmology in the philosophical sense is
not ontogenetic. 'Speculatio' is the Latin rendering
of Greek _theoria_, whose root in both Latin and Greek
is 'to see'. Such speculative seeing is not reliant on
the empirical receipt of photonic or gravitonic
messages at the speed of light in the present, but on
thinking backward, not in linear time, but to the most
elementary conceivable presuppositions. Modern science
with its absolute faith in empirical scientific method
must be absolutely hostile to speculation in this
sense. Nonetheless, _theoria_ in its philosophical
sense is unconcerned with looking backward into the
time-cone, constructing theoretical models of a Big
Bang, a steady-state or a cyclically pulsating universe,
or whatever, but is concerned with the simplest, most
elementary preconditions for our 'seeing',
understanding the world at all, without any superadded
fanciful speculations. The work performed by
philosophical thinking is therefore deconstructive in
the sense of unearthing, disassembling, removing and
disposing of the tacit presuppositions underpinning
previous philosophies, including especially the
subjectivist metaphysics upon which all modern
(natural and social) scientific thinking is tacitly
based. Thinking gets simpler and simpler, gaining a wider vista by stepping back from dogmatically held, unquestioned presuppositions.

It is a (tacit or explicit) axiom of modern physics that only sensuous
data
received in the present exist; "sensuous"
here includes all that an observer-subject can sense with the
aid of apparatuses such as microscopes, vibrating membranes in
microphones, telescopes, radio-telescopes, gravitational
interferometers, etc. etc.

For relativity physics, all observations are relative to the
observer-subject in its respective reference frame receiving
signals in the form of electromagnetic (including, in
particular, the visible colour spectrum) or gravitational
waves, which all move at the absolute speed of light, c =
300,000 km/s, either in a straight line (special relativity)
or on a curved line (general relativity). The motion of such
waves is the absolute motion. All scientific observation is
relative to and solely dependent upon receiving such e-m and
gravitational waves. The angels of modern
physics are photons and gravitons which, at their specific,
differentiated frequencies, carry information. Gravitation
itself is equivalent to the curvature of four-dimensional
space-time in co-ordinates (x. y, z, t). The specific way in
which these four co-ordinates are related to each other in the
metric of the Riemann tensor, R, determines whether the space-time in question is either
flat or curved. If R=0 everywhere, the space-time is flat.

For modern physics, it is solely by virtue of the e-m and
gravitational signals an observer-subject receives that the
observer can 'see' or 'hear' the universe. Such signals bear
energy, i.e. are pure potential and actual motion, that is
registered by the recipient medium, such as the eye's retina,
AS difference, i.e. information. Because these
signals only reach an observer at the speed of light, looking
out into the universe is looking back in linear time, t,
which, in relativity theory, for convenience, is not measured
in seconds, but in metres, that is, the metres travelled by
light in a given time interval. By convention and for ease of
mathematical manipulation, the speed of light c is set equal
to 1. Hence modern physics both mathematizes and spatializes
time entirely.

First it was optical telescopes, starting with Galileo's, that
enabled scientists to see further out into the universe than
the naked eye is capable of. The light signals carried the
information necessary to see better. Optical telescopes got
better and better, with larger and larger lenses and ever
improved resolutions allowing ever finer differentiation to be
seen in the light-messages. Starting after WWII, telescopes receiving radio, gamma rays, x-rays, etc. entered the fray, enabling e-m radiation also
outside the visible, optical spectrum to be received and hence
'seen'. These radiation signals (spectrometry) allowed
completely new phenomena in the sky to be observed for the
first time, which in turn greatly modified the theoretical
models (i.e. equations) developed to understand the information-signals
received. Phenomena such as black holes, quasars, pulsars, neutron stars were now 'visible' for the scientific
observer-subject via the signal data received and their often
very laborious analysis, which has become a major branch of
modern physics.

E-m radiation received from the sky is itself subject to
disturbance by other e-m radiation from other sources. The
further the e-m radiation has travelled to the observer, the
more it has been corrupted by this noise from having to pass
through and by other matter with its own e-m radiation. It cannot get through so-called 'decoupled' plasma-matter at all, which supposedly predominated in the young universe. By
using multiple observers and analyzing very large amounts of
data ('messages'), the noise can be filtered out to get to the
underlying 'core' message. Everything depends, of course, on
the sensitivity of the receiver-apparatuses. The signals
received carry energy which activates the sensors in the
receiver apparatus with a certain amplitude. The more
sensitive the apparatus (e.g. radio telescope), the further the
observer can 'see' or 'hear' into the universe.

Gravitational waves were detected directly for the very first
time in 2015 by the LIGO interferometers in the U.S. These
waves are extremely hard to detect, for their energy is low,
which means low amplitude which has to be sorted out from the
various sources of noise (extraneous information), principally
seismic noise from vibrations at low frequencies, thermal
noise from heat sources at
middle frequencies, shot noise from quantum effects at
higher frequencies. On the other hand, gravitational waves are
not affected by the intervening matter like e-m radiation is,
enabling better 'hearing' further back in linear time. With
the advance from the Earth-based LIGO interferometers to the space-based LISA interferometers within the next
couple of years, cosmologists hope the improved
sensitivity to be able to detect the less-noisy
gravitational signals coming from further back in
the universe's linear time. Thus they hope to
'hear' the young universe, to 'see' its highly
energetic state with its relativistic velocities
close to the speed of light. Such relativistic velocities
cannot be achieved
on Earth even with
the most powerful
particle
accelerators (the
Large Hadron
Collider at CERN).
Do the equations
worked out by
physicists to
capture the motion
of matter continue
to hold up for the
very young,
compact universe
with its highly
energetic (high-temperature) matter
moving close to
the absolute speed
of light? The
cosmologists are
still waiting from
the differentiating
message
from long ago.

Cosmology itself
rests on the
observation that
on the very, very
large scale,
beyond that of
galaxies and even
clusters of
galaxies, the
universe is
homogeneous in
every direction
and also
isotropic, i.e. it
is moving outward
in all directions
from any given
observation-point
at all, either accelearting or decelerating. These
observations have
led modern
cosmology to
postulate the expanding
universe. From
this postulation
and the
observation of the
expansion
velocity, assumed uniform, it's
easy to calculate
backwards to the
time zero when the
universe was just
a dot. This is the
event of the
Big Bang at
around 14
billion years
ago. As
a dot, however,
ultimately-small
Planck dimensions
are attained and
quantum dynamics
with quantum
indeterminacy come
into play. To date
there is no
unified theory of
gravity (curved
space-time) and
quantum dynamics,
not for want of
trying. Einstein
spent the later
part of life in
vain trying to
formulate
mathematically a
unified quantum-gravity theory. What a
bummer!
Undaunted,
cosmologists aim
nevertheless to
get closer and
closer to the Big
Bang event by
receiving
especially
relatively
noiseless
gravitational
signals from
further and
further out, i.e.
back in time.

Astoundingly, the
universe for the
modern cosmologist
is an evenly
expanding sphere
from ANY
observation point
at all in the
universe. This
conception,
remarkably enough,
corresponds to
Greek cosmological
conceptions with
their emphasis on
circles and
spheres when
accounting for the
observed motions
in the sky and the
structure of the
cosmos.

But there is at
least one major
difference. In Timaios,
Plato casts a
cosmos consisting
not merely of
matter in motion,
as modern physics
does, but of
"bodies" (_somaton_
Tim. 34b2)
"encapsulated"
(_periekalypsen_
34b4) by the
psyche (_psychae_). The psyche
for the Greeks is
the principle of
life, i.e. of
self-movement. All
that is living is
capable of, has
the power of
self-movement. The
cosmic psyche
embraces the
bodies of the
cosmos, endowing
them with
self-movement in
the sky. The
cosmic movement of
bodies is governed
by the psyche as
its "despot and
ruler" (_despotin
kai arxousan_
34c6). Plato then
differentiates
this psychically
encapsulated and
governed cosmos by
mixing
unchangeable being
and changeable
becoming to form
indivisible
sameness
(_tau'ton_35a4)
and divisible difference
(_heteron_35a4).
The realm of
difference is then
differentiated
further into seven
according to
arithmetic
proportions. The
realm of the same
is forced into a
"circuit of the
same and similar"
(_tautou kai
homoiou
periphorai_ 36d1),
the realm of
difference is
split into "seven
unequal circles"
(_hepta kuklous
anisous_ 36d2).

The
thoughtful part of the all-encapsulating psyche,
_nous_ or mind, ensures that the cosmos is ordered
according to arithmetically rational proportions.
One does not have to wonder, then, that Werner
Heisenberg, the famous German mathematical
physicist who first developed the matrix
formulation of quantum mechanics, along with the
unsettling quantum indeterminacy for the movement
of dynamic states, took a strong orientation in
his work precisely from Plato's Timaios
(cf. his autobiography, Der Teil und das Ganze).
In his mathematical quantum theory, Heisenberg
followed above all principles of symmetry and
simplicity, the main 'aesthetic' criteria in
mathematics. And if you delve into Einsteinian
general relativity theory, you'll also find that
the challenging mathematical language he
especially developed for it (tensor mathematics),
which aims at maximizing compact brevity through
symmetries built into the notation, reduces in the
end to wondrously simple-looking equations.

In contrast to modern relativity physics, the
cosmic psyche and its mind is not reliant on
receiving messages from the absolute motion of
electro-magnetic and gravitational radiation. Its
_nous_ (reason) is all-encompassing, enabling it
to 'see' the entire cosmos in its arithmetic structure,
as furthered developed in Timaios. Thus
does the cosmos presence rationally for the mind.

11 November 2016

:This time-clearing is not a space, for it is prespatial, it has no where; just as it must be kept firmly in mind that not all movement, such as the movement of the thinking mind, is spatial. Movement as movement of that which can move and that which can move itself is always already implicitly seen as embedded in this temporal three-dimensionality, whereby the before and after must be understood as kinds of absence, and the present itself as presence. Movement itself thus becomes a richly diverse play of presencing and absencing in the three-dimensional time-clearing which, in turn, can also be seen, that is, understood, by the temporally three-eyed, three-dimensional vision of the human mind. In this precise sense, the mind can be identified with time, that is, with the three-dimensional time-clearing; they are the same. This insight justifies giving the German word 'Zeitgeist', long since adopted in English, a new meaning as the belonging-together of Zeit (time) and Geist (mind). As human beings we inhabit the openness of timemind. Without this temporally three-eyed, three-dimensional mental vision, human beings would not be able to see movement and change as such at all. This 'primal state' is fundamentally overlooked and skipped over today everywhere. Auf Deutsch aus